A network, e.g., a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network, is traditionally optimized to handle a load during busy hour traffic while subject to some level of congestion and/or failure of network elements within a network. However, it is not engineered to account for extremely large traffic surges caused by exception events.
When a surge in demand beyond the engineered capacity of the network occurs, the network operator or service provider may simply limit the traffic to the core network to prevent the network from failing. However, this has the unintended effect of limiting the carried load before the network reaches the maximum capacity that it is capable of supporting. Furthermore, the network operator's revenue may be based on the carried load. Hence, limiting the carried load prior to reaching the maximum capacity may also affect the network operator's revenue.